I know I've been radio silence for a few days. Don't worry, I haven't been eaten by an  eldritch Lovecraftian horror (note to self: get the dollhouse a Cthulhu). I went on a weekend trip to help my sister move into her dorm (love you, sis!)

After that, I got the kind of headache that beats up other headaches on the playground, and also I've been sewing for a commission piece!

That doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about you.  On Saturday we stopped by an antique shop and got four knobby things that would make great barstools.  Also, I went shooting for the first time ever last week, and shell casings would be fantastic as chair legs, or other metal-y accents, just don't tell the Doctor.  Or Batman.  Also: I have some canvas from... a canvas that my sister didn't want anymore, and it was kind of ruined by hot glue on the surface, so I cut out the canvas from the frame and now I have it to stretch over tiny wooden frameworks.

 I promise, I'll be back to my regularly scheduled yammering tomorrow!  Happy arting!

Today's post is brought to you by the letter B, and nostalgia for Sesame Street.  Birdcage, bear, and Batman, but we won't be making the bear or the Batman.

All you need is string, white glue, and that same thin cardboard we used to make Edgar Allan Poe his pink bunny slippers, plastic wrap, wire, toothpicks, and a thingamajig the shape that you want your cage to be.

I used the plastic container to a very small quarter-machine toy, and a bottle cap, and I covered it with clear plastic cling wrap.  Then I coated string in glue and started to lay it out, crisscross.  The cardboard does well for a bottom, the toothpicks as a place for the bird to perch, wire to attach a door.

After some fiddling, here it is.  It looks a little dinged up, but I think that gives it character (like it's been piled under two novels, an old geode, a lamp, and a bowler hat in the depths of an intergalactic garage), and it's not bad at all for a first go!

I don't have access to woodstains, so I wanted to experiment with what looks best on balsa wood. I decided, to do that, I would need to build a few tiny birdhouses.  It's convenient and necessary, considering how many tiny birds I have.

I can't escape from birds. They're in my writing, they're in my artwork, and now they're in my dollhouse.  That's okay, though.  Poe is the type of guy to dig incessant chirping... right?

Erm, gulp.  I'll get back to you on that.

If you've never used balsa wood, this stuff is epic.  It's so soft that it feels like it has fur.  It literally seems impossible to get a splinter with the stuff... but with my luck, I totally will.

I spent almost an hour staring at the cardstock I was going to use to make the patterns with before I decided, nah, I'm too lazy to make a pattern.  This is probably going to be a mistake.  To the Batmobile (ruler and boxcutter and pencil)!

...it was a mistake.  It looks good now, due to a lot of extra work, which would have been saved had I made patterns.  No matter how lazy you feel, make a pattern missies and misters!   And scratch that about balsa being awesome.  It's awesome until the third time you try to put a hole through a piece and it splits on you and you throw a massive tantrum.  I wanted the holes to be large enough for the birds, but now I see that the birdhouses must have TARDIS technology to make them bigger on the inside.

Soooo painting.  No lie, I always end up with acrylic on my clothes and in my mouth.  I'm like a chef; I eat more than I make!  Not on purpose. I just sometimes put the wrong end of the brush in my mouth to hold it and... thank heavens for nontoxic paint.

The blue birdhouse is exactly what you think it is.  The sides and back are done the same way that the front is.  I probably should've done a flat top for it.  And the primary colored one is for if anyone in the dollhouse adopts a child, who is sure to grow up demented.  Those two are also glazed glossy, which I think really makes the colors pop.

Moral of the story part one:  both watercolor and watered down acrylic sort of looked like wood stain, except it gravitated to the cut edges and stained them darker.  That can be fixed with some blotting.  At any rate, it's something to experiment with! 

Moral of the story part deux: if you have shaky hands sometimes like I do, there's no shame in hitting pause and not arting until your hands are working properly.  Well, maybe a little bit of shame, but not a lot, and no one but you needs to know.

Moral of the story part trois: not really a moral, but I've had Birdhouse in Your Soul stuck in my head alllll day.

Guys, you better be so proud of me!  I finally finished the flooring in the turquoise room!  I used shaggy carpeting that's evil to cut but it covers up the seams gloriously, and just melds. 

Here's my workspace.  I made a template of the room, then mapped it out with tiny squares.

It was actually the easiest flooring I've done, once everything was cut.  I had a few close calls with the boxcutter; kids, be more careful than me.  I'm a clumsy-bug.  The shagginess of the carpet made it really forgiving, especially since it has this kind of chaotic look to the weave already.

Here's the Doctor talking to a benevolent giantess.

Here's a closer look at the floor proper.

Door knobs make perfect little tables, and if you don't believe me, imagine this, rotated on its side onto the roundish flat end (maybe with tiny beaded feet added to keep it steady), with a table cloth over it the flatter flat end.  Kind of hip, huh?

If you want to get fancy-pantsed, look for older door knobs.

Crystal side down, but for the others, I'd suggest flat side down, with a round, thick piece of plastic (or glass, if you want to get fancy) so you can still see the intricate designs on the top.  It's kind of round, but if you glue the plastic flat right at the middle, and cover up the seam all the way around with a trim that looks good with the color of the knob, you should be right as rain (if rain has rights).  It's weird and quirky, but I dig that scene, yo.

I don't have one myself to show you, but I was inspired by two (two!) separate occasions of garage sales today that had doorknobs for sale, except they were all quite rounded.

I need to man up and do the floors.  Maybe tomorrow, at never-o'-clock.

OKAY FOLKS.  HI.  HI I HAVE MISSED YOU SO.

I am living in a pit of artistic squalor. 

The reason this is taking me so long is that I have some serious decisions to make.

Here's a groovy dollar store find!

The cheap-looking satin bow and ruffles are held on by hot glue, so I peeled it off, and now there's just the one question: am I going to keep it white and classy, or paint it a wildly bright color like the rest of the house?

And I have new carpet for the teal-ish room that I went medieval on a few days ago!  But I have to decide which one to use.  The picture doesn't do it justice, but they both have flecks of green in it, and other colors, and they're pretty gosh darn groovy, and shaggy.  I'm equally enamored with both.  I could just chop them into smaller squares and checkerboard it, but I don't know aaaah what do you think?

Also deciding which room I want to make the Batcave since there really isn't a basement.  HEY YOU GUYS GIVE ME YOUR OPINIONS.  I want to keep them in a little jar have some input.

In a furious fit of obsessive compulsocity I ripped up the carpeting from yesterday.  It wasn't working. 

Here's something that I learned the hard way that no one ever told me: SUPERGLUE DISCOLORS STUFF AND THEN IT HARDENS AND THEN IT'S USELESS.  I knew to try it on a sample bit, and I did, but maybe I didn't try enough.  At any rate, I may try to salvage what I have, or I may get more samples and start from scratch.  Only time (tomorrow) will tell, because I have another rule: never art anxiously.  At least, never for something that matters.  Go to town on a canvas to get out some aggression with abstract splashes of paint and swishes of glitter and snips with a scissor, but don't try for precision work.

I do have a tiny stroke of brilliance for you to make up for it, though. Six words: Dollar Store Battery Operated Tiny Booklamps.  They'd make the perfect indoor lighting.  You're welcome!  Happy arting.